State will stress 7 points in Zocco’s homicide trial
Defense says evidence is just circumstantial
Almost from the day Kelly Dwyer went missing five years ago, people suspected Kris Zocco was responsible. She was last seen with him entering his high-rise apartment building on Milwaukee’s east side.
But her remains weren’t found for 19 months, so decomposed that a cause of death could not be determined, and then it took prosecutors another two years to charge Zocco, 44, with fatally strangling Dwyer, 27, during bondage sex and hiding her corpse.
Starting Monday, after 16 months of fierce pretrial litigation, prosecutors will finally try to convict Zocco — without any direct evidence and against an aggressive defense.
How will they do it? Lots of circumstantial evidence, a mosaic of little facts that, viewed from a distance, prosecutors say, clearly reveal Zocco as guilty.
Expect the state to stress these seven key pieces of evidence, and how the defense is expected to counter them:
1. Security camera footage
Security cameras showed Dwyer, 27, entering Zocco’s apartment building with him in the early hours of Oct. 11, 2013, but she’s never seen leaving.
The defense: Detectives did not look at video from all 29 cameras around the building, and now some of that video is gone. There also are ways out that aren’t covered by cameras. Zocco told police the couple did drugs, had sex, then passed out, but that Dwyer left about 9 a.m.
2. The shower curtain
The shower curtain in Zocco’s apartment appeared to have been torn from its hooks and was missing. A cadaversniffing dog alerted to possible traces of
decomposing human tissue near Zocco’s bed, the bathroom, a closet and near the trash chute in the hallway, and near Zocco’s parking spot in the basement where the trash chute empties out.
The defense: An expert will testify about the unreliability of cadaversniffing dogs and say several routine body fluids might have caused K-9 Molly to alert.
3. Cellphone video
A search of Zocco’s cellphone turned up video from a couple of weeks earlier of him having rough sex with Dwyer, in which she is bound, blindfolded and appears to be struggling to breathe and nearly unconscious.
The defense: Some people enjoy “breath play” sex, involving near asphyxiation to heighten arousal, and the video proves Dwyer must have consented because she returned with Zocco to his apartment Oct. 11.
4. The GPS gap
The GPS locational function of Zocco’s phone was off for 17 hours between the early evening of Oct. 11 and the following afternoon, when prosecutors theorize he was driving around looking for a place to hide Dwyer’s body.
The defense: His phone was just off.
5. A shoe purchase
During the 17 hours, Zocco bought a pair of shoes in Delafield, about 13 miles from where Dwyer’s body was later discovered in Jefferson County.
The defense: If Zocco was “technically sophisticated” enough to disable his phone’s GPS, why would he leave a credit card trail of his shoe purchase?
6. A prison snitch
A fellow state prison inmate, Darnell Leflore, told detectives Zocco recently confessed to him that a woman died while they were engaged in asphyxiation sex, and that he wrapped her body in a shower curtain, slid it down a trash chute and drove it away to “the outskirts” of town.
The defense: Leflore is a classic “jailhouse snitch” who could have acquired all those details from news reports, and who is looking for a break on his own 42-year sentence.
7. A missing travel bag
A large travel bag for golf clubs was missing from Zocco’s apartment and has never been found. Prosecutors theorized Zocco hid Dwyer’s body inside the bag and wheeled it to his car trunk.
The defense: Zocco moved a bunch of summer sports equipment to his mother’s house on Oct. 11.
Expect heavy media coverage of the trial, which could include testimony from Zocco’s former girlfriends about his proclivity for risky, dangerous sex, and about his demeanor in the days after Dwyer disappeared.
Zocco is already serving a 19-year prison sentence for possession of child pornography and drugs discovered during the investigation of Dwyer’s disappearance.
That’s how he met up with Leflore, 37, who also told detectives that Dwyer sought his help over the summer to stop one of Zocco’s ex-girlfriends from testifying at his trial, which will now include a new charge of solicitation to intimidate a witness.
The trial, expected to last two weeks, will also feature a jury trip to see Zocco’s former apartment, on the 18th floor of Lafayette Towers, on Tuesday.
Timeline of Kelly Dwyer’s disappearance
Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, 2:37 a.m. Kelly Dwyer is seen with Kris Zocco entering his apartment.
10:06 a.m. Zocco drives away from his building.
10:08 a.m. Dwyer’s phone, which has never been recovered, makes its last connection to a cell tower serving the area of Lafayette Towers.
10:22 a.m. Zocco returns to his apartment in his car.
6:16 p.m. Zocco drives away from his building. He later told police he was taking summer sports equipment to his mother’s house in Richfield.
7:43 p.m. SIM card removed from Zocco’s cellphone.
8 p.m. Zocco arrives, late for a planned dinner with another woman he’d been dating, at her Milwaukee condo. He tells her his SIM card is not working, which is why he wasn’t getting her calls.
Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013, 7:30 a.m. Zocco leaves the other woman’s condo.
10 a.m. Dwyer fails to show up for her job, and friends begin trying to reach her or Zocco by phone, without success. Nor can they find either of them, at either of their apartments. Dwyer’s mother reports her missing.
Noon: Zocco buys shoes in Delafield.
2:41 p.m. SIM card is reinstalled in Zocco’s cellphone, while back at Lafayette Towers.